Yaoi goes to high school

(Plain talk about male bodies and man-man sex, plus a decidedly steamy image of young men in the midst of having sex, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

From a “news for penises” posting on the 5th, a burlesque of Edward Lear’s “The Jumblies” beginning

Thick and big, thick and big,
Are the dicks where the Yaoi live

followed by some explanation, with a promissory note:

yaoi (roughly, ‘boys’ love’) is a genre of Japanese manga (comics) depicting romantic and sexual relationships between young men. (I will soon post some examples, including material from the manga story Himitsu no Yoasobi (titled Secret Night Play in English) — which is relevant here because the sending address for the ad above [for gay porn with Thick and Big dicks] was yoasobi.com).

Now to fulfill that promise.

But first, huge thanks to Michael Palmer, who’s not only an excellent archivist but also a whiz at ferreting out information, for supplying me with materials about Himitsu no Yoasobi (Secret Night Play), about the three-volume sequence of which it’s the last part (Boys of Seiryou High), and about the author of the series, Honju Rie. (Note that Japanese names have the family name first, followed by the personal name.)

The title. The first word in the title, himitsu, is a noun that means ‘secret’. The no that follows it is a particle word in Japanese, a particle whose primary function is mark possession, so that himitsu no would (out of context) be glossed as ‘secret’s, of a/the secret’, but it’s also used to convert a noun into an adjective-like modifier, so that himitsu no in the title is glossed as the adjective ‘secret’. The last word in the title, yoasobi, is a noun variously translated as ‘night amusements, night play, nightlife’, so that Yoasobi News (e-address yoasobi.com) is a pretty good name for a porn service.

Yaoi … is a Japanese genre of fictional media focusing on romantic or sexual relationships between male characters, typically aimed at a female audience and usually created by female authors [like Honju Rie]. Although yaoi is typically aimed at a female audience, the genre also attracts some male readers; however, manga aimed at a gay male audience (bara) is considered a separate genre [and tends to feature bigger, heavier, hairier, and more muscular men that yaoi does].

The main characters in yaoi usually conform to the formula of the seme (the “top”, or dominant figure) who pursues the uke (the “bottom”, or passive figure). … Although the yaoi genre is also called Boys’ Love (commonly abbreviated as BL), the characters may be of any age above puberty, including adults. Works featuring prepubescent boys are labelled shotacon and seen as a distinct genre.

… [The terms seme and uke, both of them disyllabic] originated in martial arts: seme derives from [a] verb “to attack”, while uke is taken from the verb “to receive” and is used in Japanese gay slang to mean the receptive partner (“bottom”) in anal sex.

… The seme is often depicted as the stereotypical male of anime and manga culture: restrained, physically powerful, and protective. The seme is generally older and taller, with a stronger chin, shorter hair, smaller eyes, and a more stereotypically masculine, and “macho” demeanour than the uke. The seme usually pursues the uke, who often has softer, androgynous, feminine features with bigger eyes and a smaller build, and is often physically weaker than the seme.

… Anal sex is a prevalent theme in yaoi, as nearly all stories feature it in some way. … [Aleardo] Zanghellini notes that illustrations of anal sex almost always position the characters to face each other [where they can easily kiss], rather than in the ‘doggy style’. Zanghellini also notes that the uke rarely fellates the seme, but instead receives the sexual and romantic attentions of the seme.

The stories are intensely romantic, full of kissing and other displays of affection, and they are typically also deeply fuck-centric.

The characters from Himitsu no Yoasobi (where they are young adults):

(#1)

The characters come in couples, seen here in three tiers (I’m not entirely sure I’ve identified them correctly):

standing in the rear, seme Kojima and uke Kurata

in the middle, uke Retsu and seme Kaji, Kaji seated higher than Retsu

in the front, seme Kota and uke Hiroto, Kota seated higher than Hiroto

In each couple, one (presumably the seme) is taller than the uke, and in each couple this man has dark hair while the other (presumably the uke) has lighter hair (the drawing is in black and white, so you can’t tell the actual colors of the ukes’ hair). All of the men have Caucasian facial features (as is common in all types of manga) and all except Kaji have some sort of “manga hair” (see my 12/17/15 posting on the subject); Kaji, who is in a sense a seme‘s seme (in school he was the president of the student body, so he was the most powerful of the six), has short hair in a Western-style cut. All of the men except Hiroto, who is in a sense a uke‘s uke (he’s a year younger than the rest and is the smallest of the six), have ordinary eyes, but Hiroto has “manga eyes” (see my 12/15/15 posting with a section on the subject), which makes him stand out as babyish and “cute”.

I note that it sometimes happens that an uke will flip a seme, and some readers of yaoi especially like the comics with dominant or aggressive ukes. In fact there is some flipping in the stories of the high school boys.

One couple, Kaji and Retsu, in a scene sprinkled with hearts of romantic attachment, showing the possessive and protective seme Kaji (with a gun!) pursuing his uke Retsu:

(#2)

And a scene between the other sharply contrasted couple, seme Kota (on the right, with the phallic ice cream cone) and his uke Hiroto (with the vaginal cup of ice cream) (note that manga is read right to left, both from panel to panel and in the dialogue within a panel, so that Kota speaks first here):

(#3)

The whole series is available on-line, via this site, in Spanish. There are also sites with downloadable files, in Japanese and in Spanish.

1 Konna Otoko wa Aisareru (Love a Man Like Him) Synopsis: Student Body President Kaji Shogo [this should presumably be Shogo Kaji in Japanese order] is aware his secretary, Soneka Retsu has been in love with him for the longest time. Although Shogo has been dropping hints so Retsu could make the next move, Retsu seems content keeping their relationship at a respectable distance. As this is Shogo’s last year, it seems he will have to take matter into his hands if he wants anything to happen at all.

2 Ai no Kotoba mo Shiranaide (I Don’t Even Know the Word of Love) Synopsis: Student Body Vice President, Kojima’s method of managing pressure: sex. Even if he has to blackmail other students to have sex with him, he will do it just get to relieve from the building pressure of maintaining his position as the top 2 students in school. That’s one of the reason he doesn’t like people like Kurata, who has decided to take over his family sushi business and live a very carefree life in school.

Kota gained a younger stepbrother when his father remarried. Unfortunately, Hiroto is not the most tactful person in the world and already, he pisses Kota off when they first met. Now that they have to live together on their own while their parents went on honeymoon, Kota will have to learn to deal with taciturn Hiroto for the sake of the family.

3 Himitsuno Yoasobi (Secret Night Play) Synopsis: A series of short stories on the three couples after they graduated from high school and how they adjusted to adult life.

1) Retsu has decided to attend a different university from Kaji and their time spent together is limited, which makes Kaji questioned whether he is the only feeling lonely with the arrangement.

2) While Kojima is now studying in university, Kurata has started to work at his family business, so their time together is pretty limited. As much as Kojima wanted to properly convey his love to Kurata, he still finds it hard to do so.

3) Kota decided to move out of the family house to be closer to his college but Hiroto felt abandoned and thus created a misunderstanding between them.

And now a sex scene, between Kaji and Retsu. From the point where Retsu is trembling in anticipation and Kaji kisses him…

Retsu: Date prisa… y ponio dentro. (Hurry up… and put it in.)

Retsu: Sólo estoy tan excitado cuando te pones todo posesivo conmigo. (I’m just so excited when you get all possessive of me.)

Kaji fucks Retsu, with sound effects: squish slick spurt

(#4)

(Note that Kaji gets the honorific –san, but Retsu does not.)

Afterwards:

Retsu: Aaaah….

Kaji: Te amo…

Retsu: Mmmm…

Yes, the sound effects are in English, from Honjou Rie’s original Japanese version; the words will be pronounced as English borrowings into Japanese, according to a scheme for adapting English words to the Japanese phonological system (the scheme that gives us, for example, besuboru for baseball). These sound-effect words are part of the drawings, just as much a part of them as the figures of the characters. Various sorts of balloons (for the representation of speech and thought, or for giving identifying information) are separate from the main content of the drawings, and can have the original Japanese text replaced by a translation into Spanish, English, or whatever (presumably by pasting the new text over the old). The treatment of speech in #3 can be similarly managed, but without involving actual balloons.

From a site about manga authors, we learn that Honjou has been creating manga (so far, over 30 series of them) since at least 2001. Also her birthday and her astrological sign and her bood type, but not her age or place of residence.

2 Responses to “Yaoi goes to high school”

South Park — a show I adore and think is one of the most incisive and interesting satires of life in the USA — had a show about this graphic narrative form. It was very clever. Of course and as they say, YMMV.

“Tweek x Craig” is the sixth episode of the nineteenth season and the 263rd overall episode of the animated television series South Park, written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. The episode premiered on Comedy Central on October 28, 2015. The episode parodies the slash fiction genre of yaoi art and the acceptance of the LGBT community, while continuing its season-long lampoon of political correctness.